We're going to start writing C# programs against a old legacy database from the early 1980s. There is no support for SQL or relationships, and communication with it is through Telnet commands.
I'm thinking of using some sort of ORM framework, or write my own. My question is if there is any good framework that is possible to easily adapt to these special conditions?
I want to be able to map the classes in my program against tables in the database and work with the database in a modern way, without having to think about the complex telnet commands and the translation of the returned information into something meaningful.
I find it hard to believe that such datasources have any usable adapters today. Think of what kind of operations you will need and construct an ORM with any commands you may require. Depending on structure and data this may vary in a lot of different ways. Some questions you may take along in this project are
When it comes to DTO-Api's I like to implement CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation, read this http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj591573.aspx). If you are constructing an ordinary CRUD-Api you will most likely have to separate your code differently and resolve each command type dynamically (if possible).
Feel free to e-mail me, you should be able to reach me in the corp-ad.